Random thoughts on the blue highways.
You never know what you will find on the blue highways. Particularly when the choice at an intersection is controlled by the roll of a die. About the only rule is that highway onramps don't count as an intersection. You don't even have to roll the die. If one road looks interesting, go for it.

About Me

Don't look for me much on the big news sites, I skim through them, but rarely find much that is worth commenting on. As a young son once said "We don't watch TV news, dad won't let us watch violence programs." I still don't.
Interests are religion, marketing theory (that is not an oxymoron,) Advertizing, digital photography, APOD, and historically, rocket science.
e-mail: jcarlinbl@gmail.com
The literary version is found at Thinking On the Blue Roads
The raw data for which can be found on The Blue Roads of Thinking.

Thursday, September 24, 2015

Is Internet Porn Ruining Our Next Generation? Is Censorship the Answer?

Most computers, smart phones and even home routers have controls to
exclude unwanted internet content. Parents who think porn is bad can
filter it. Social controls (your conscience) is not the answer.

But
if you really want to consider the children teach them early and often
"About your Sexuality" or its successor "Our Whole Lives" curriculum
from UU and UCC which treats sexuality as a natural part of the human
existence. If you don't teach them they will learn it from
advertisements and TV reality shows. Or their porn loving friends.

Education always works. Censorship never does.

I
read a study a few months ago about young boys and the effects of
viewing porn (as a mom of two boys, I was curious) and it focused on the
fact that porn skews a person's view of sex and of 'normalcy.' In the
study, the boys interviewed thought all girls looked like the girls in
porn and if they didn't then that was weird (i.e., all girls were fully
shaved, etc). It also discussed how the sex in porn is not even
realistic and so it causes young men (and young girls that view it) to
have unrealistic expectations. IMO, porn is not harmless and it's not
something that should be viewed by children.christiangirl

If young boys and girls don't know what normal is, of course porn will
skew their view of sex and 'normalcy.' If they are kept in the dark of
"we don't talk about that" and the only light is porn, guess what, light
is normal. I was given a sex education book as soon as I learned to
read, about 4 or 5. '40s. It was as might be expected poorly written
and obscure but my parents encouraged me to ask them or my older sisters
about anything I didn't understand. Needless to say I was a trouble
maker in grade school as other kids knew I had answers to questions
their parents wouldn't talk about.

Mammals
have sex at puberty and are interested in it far before that. Humans
are mammals. They will figure it out one way or the other.

And,
yet, grown men have their views on sex skewed by porn. It's not just
about whether or not a kid is taught about 'normal' sex prior to their
viewing porn. ...watching too much porn desensitizes us to 'normal' sex.
Studies back me up...christiangirl

I
suspect that none of those studies included grown men that didn't learn
about sex from the church (sex is sin, and the missionary position
while still sinful is excusable for procreation.) Or in the military:
FFF&F.

I know and
have followed many children both boys and girls that were taught
properly about sexuality pre-puberty and most of them find kinky porn to
be a stupid waste of time. Most had good relationships with the
opposite sex through early puberty and later in life. None of them had
unwanted children. This is confirmed by follow up studies on children
that were exposed to the About Your Sexuality and Our Whole Lives
curriculums both by UU and UCC research.

Are you actually suggesting that parents take an active roll in raising their own kids? You're asking way too much.mountain_humanist

Liberals think it is the governments job, i.e. "it takes a village."Seraphim

Since
religious parents and many others have shown they can't do the job of
teaching sexuality and defusing porn, perhaps the village stepping in is
not a bad idea.

In subjects like sexual mores that have
such an important impact on peoples "village" I think the government
and schools should stay entirely out of the picture. Government
and schools will fall to the lowest common denominator usually "Just
say no" as unrealistic as that is for sex or anything else. First
and most important are the parents, supported either by their church or
secular resources, eg, charitable organizations providing information
and contraceptives for those choosing that route, or the many "Sex Ed"
books available at the library, some written at the child's level of
development. Amazon has a whole section in children's books>Growing
Up and Facts of Life. As noted earlier put a few on the child's
bookshelf and encourage questions. When the child needs themheshwill find them.

Perhaps surprisingly I think the child's church should be the choice
for parents who do not choose to be involved. Make sure your church
school has a sexuality resource center no matter what the doctrine is.
The child will have to live with the consequences of that doctrine so
they had best know what it is. Note that child is pre-pubescent. If
they learn before the hormones kick in they are more likely to make
better choices.

The
worst choice for parents who don't want to be involved actively is
unfortunately porn. Make sure the door is open to talk about it. They
will see it. Banned or not. If they can't talk to parents and mentors,
they will learn from peers and porn stars.

Still,
education simply cannot satiate curiosity, it won't. Your 12 year old
is still going to want to see what he can see on the internet. After
all I have seen and even done I still have curiosity myself from time to
time.

That is where things can get weird, even with
eduation kids are still forming impressions and still forming
connections and can get things sadly wrong with some of the stuff they
can see online.

I almost ( I said almost, not quite) think
you should do some porny web surfing with kids to be there to correct
where things are wrong and where it is not realistic. But I also
believe in strong boundaries and can't imagine doing something like that
myself. Funderey

There is a
difference between education and indoctrination. Education is open
inquiry where questions and issues are invited and welcome. When a 12
year old surfs some disturbing porn, either they will hide it if
indoctrinated and get things wrong, or if educated ask a trusted mentor
what the hell is this? But they have to know what "Normal sexuality" is
in their culture before they can ask about "Abnormal sex"

I
still find you wildly unrealistic and out of touch here. NO, your
average run of the mill - NON indoctrinated, not even religious 12 year
old is not going to be totally up front and honest about the porn he or
she surfed. They will talk to their friends if it is particularly weird. funderey

One of the early activities in a sexuality education curriculum is
defusing taboos. A bunch of taboo words are written on a sheet of
butcher paper, and the kids are asked to write synonyms under them and
cross out any wrong synonyms. Then the fun begins. "What is wrong with
that crossed out word?" asks the facilitator. The kids begin to argue
and all sorts of taboos see the light of day. But the kids learn that
they can discuss anything at all, and they do. One thing they usually
argue about is whether a word is nice or not, and the facilitator
smiles. Sexuality education has just sprung up unannounced.

I
may be out of touch with the real world, but I have been asked
questions by pre-pubescent kids that I had to research to answer. And I
told the kid just that. Not that it was wrong, just that I didn't
know.